Does conference record really matter when in 3 of those 5 years you went to the NIT twice and a play in game once?
Nice win
- Thread starter BigD
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Does conference record really matter when in 3 of those 5 years you went to the NIT twice and a play in game once?
Hopefully, since Iowa probably isn't going anywhere in the post season, it would be nice if they finished ahead of Wisconsin. Wisconsin is tied for tenth place right now, and its kind of nice that they won't finish in the top four again. It usually takes a few years when a new coach comes when you can see where the team is headed.
SteveGarvey1
Well-Known Member
It's one metric to look at. The Fran haters never seem to mention it.
HuckFinn
Well-Known Member
Did you watch the game? Iowa has given up a lot of uncontested three's as we all know. Wisconsin had almost zero uncontested three's. Iowa guards were in their grill from the get go.
HuckFinn
Well-Known Member
Obviously you missed the game. Iowa's guards were in their grill all night and there were almost NO open three's for the badgers.
HuckFinn
Well-Known Member
No. Wisconsin did not miss a lot of open shots because Iowa's defense did not give them very many open shots.
HuckFinn
Well-Known Member
Of course you do. He is a coach.
HuckFinn
Well-Known Member
No. The "rest of the Board" recognizes that you are pretty darn negative about, well, everything Iowa sports.
HuckFinn
Well-Known Member
You obviously don't know much about division 1 athletes. They want to play any time, any where, and compete. Yeah. They would rather be in the Big Dance. But if you think they are bored with the NIT, you are dead wrong.
And, I am not just talking about Iowa.
They did miss a lot of layups tho. A lot of highly contested layups because our defense was actually giving effort.
They did have some open shots. But all teams are good enough to get some open shots. The difference is they didn't make every open shot they took and half of their contested ones becasue the defense actually made them uncomfortable for once. It's easier to make a contested shot when comfortable than it is to make an open shot when uncomfortable. The defense played a huge part in how this game played out.
HuckFinn
Well-Known Member
Well. You just came up with the longest list of assumptions based on your own bias that you have posted at any time in the past. Congrats!
Conference record is one of many things that matter when evaluating a coach. People who get held accountable for their decisions need to put a little more thought into it than the random message board poster.
It's funny how he sneaks his agendas into posts.
The easiest way to get on the All Freshmen team is to play a bunch of minutes. I don't think those two being on that list means we should have done better as a team. In fact, if Iowa has two freshmen make that list, it more than likely means the team is in trouble.
That was due to Fran's previous coaching/recruiting. Just that year by itself was one of his best coaching years.
He actually coached so well for the first half of two years that people rip him for his players not being able to maintain the lofty expectations they achieved. Coaches can't win with some fans. He gets a decent team to play like a top 10 team for awhile (which is a good thing) and all fans care about is they couldn't maintain it (Which is unrealistic to expect).
thedukeofearl
Well-Known Member
Fran isn't necessarily to blame for everything. The blame can honestly be shared. For many reasons, things haven't worked out as well as most expected.
Many of us were expecting to pick up where last season ended. Excellent wins at Wisconsin and Maryland, which, last season, were very difficult for any BIG team. Plus we beat Indiana and Penn State at Carver. A four game winning streak to end the conference season. I will Not mention the performance in the Tournament. We were one win away from making The Dance. The stolen game at Minnesota was painful. We did well in the NIT, losing by 2 in OT to the eventual NIT Champs TCU. Not too shabby for one of the youngest teams in the nation. with one player with meaningful game experience, but a Big Ten first team player.
The success in the European trip also elevated expectations. It certainly seemed that we would make the top tier in the Big, despite the experts predicting a bottom of the barrel finish.
Working Garza and Nunge into the mix didn't work out as well as we thought. The team had to establish chemistry and identity, a cohesive blending into a functioning machine. Not as easy to do as we thought. It was difficult to find the right starting lineup and lineup changes were sketchy at best. Wholesale lineup changes worked at times last season but not this season. There str many reasons things have been difficult to come to fruition.....
Progress has been slow in the conference, but improvement came at Illinois. Champaign always has been a tough win for the Hawks. The second half rally for the win was hard fought, but we didn't give up and survived for the win. Rutgers was very discouraging and Purdue was abysmal, although they are a legitimate top-five team. The win against the Badgers was expected but the rout was not. For the first time since the Colorado game, the Hawks played with purpose and determination. They played as a cohesive unit on defense and offense. It was rewarding to see. This is the team we had been expecting to see the entire season.
Everyone contributed to a satisfying win. I really don't expect a win at Nebraska, but would like to see the same effort and play we saw against the Badgers. After that, we have a revenge game against Minnesota. That should be a win and perhaps a rout. We have a chance at Penn State, but I don't really expect a win there. Then it is the Spartans at Carver. That one is a possible win, only if we continue to develop and play with purpose. That opinion is based on Lickliter beating them and Fran beating them by 20 his first year, then losing by 5 to them in the B1G tournament. Then, I foresee two losses at Ohio State and Michigan. Two of the last three games are at Carver, Indiana and Northwestern. They should be wins. The game at Minnesota might be a tossup.
I think 5/6 wins in the Big Ten are very possible, which, although not up to preseason expectations, would be acceptable, considering the less than optimal start in the conference.
The NIT is out unless we play for the championship in the B1G Tournament. The Dance is impossible. The best of all possible worlds is that we continue to play as well as we did against Wisconsin and improve. That should set the stage for next season with JoeW coming onboard. The foundation is being set and the results should be respectable.
Merely the idle ramblings strolling through the mind of an unrepentant Homer, nothing else.....
Many of us were expecting to pick up where last season ended. Excellent wins at Wisconsin and Maryland, which, last season, were very difficult for any BIG team. Plus we beat Indiana and Penn State at Carver. A four game winning streak to end the conference season. I will Not mention the performance in the Tournament. We were one win away from making The Dance. The stolen game at Minnesota was painful. We did well in the NIT, losing by 2 in OT to the eventual NIT Champs TCU. Not too shabby for one of the youngest teams in the nation. with one player with meaningful game experience, but a Big Ten first team player.
The success in the European trip also elevated expectations. It certainly seemed that we would make the top tier in the Big, despite the experts predicting a bottom of the barrel finish.
Working Garza and Nunge into the mix didn't work out as well as we thought. The team had to establish chemistry and identity, a cohesive blending into a functioning machine. Not as easy to do as we thought. It was difficult to find the right starting lineup and lineup changes were sketchy at best. Wholesale lineup changes worked at times last season but not this season. There str many reasons things have been difficult to come to fruition.....
Progress has been slow in the conference, but improvement came at Illinois. Champaign always has been a tough win for the Hawks. The second half rally for the win was hard fought, but we didn't give up and survived for the win. Rutgers was very discouraging and Purdue was abysmal, although they are a legitimate top-five team. The win against the Badgers was expected but the rout was not. For the first time since the Colorado game, the Hawks played with purpose and determination. They played as a cohesive unit on defense and offense. It was rewarding to see. This is the team we had been expecting to see the entire season.
Everyone contributed to a satisfying win. I really don't expect a win at Nebraska, but would like to see the same effort and play we saw against the Badgers. After that, we have a revenge game against Minnesota. That should be a win and perhaps a rout. We have a chance at Penn State, but I don't really expect a win there. Then it is the Spartans at Carver. That one is a possible win, only if we continue to develop and play with purpose. That opinion is based on Lickliter beating them and Fran beating them by 20 his first year, then losing by 5 to them in the B1G tournament. Then, I foresee two losses at Ohio State and Michigan. Two of the last three games are at Carver, Indiana and Northwestern. They should be wins. The game at Minnesota might be a tossup.
I think 5/6 wins in the Big Ten are very possible, which, although not up to preseason expectations, would be acceptable, considering the less than optimal start in the conference.
The NIT is out unless we play for the championship in the B1G Tournament. The Dance is impossible. The best of all possible worlds is that we continue to play as well as we did against Wisconsin and improve. That should set the stage for next season with JoeW coming onboard. The foundation is being set and the results should be respectable.
Merely the idle ramblings strolling through the mind of an unrepentant Homer, nothing else.....
smitharooney
Well-Known Member
You are blind , Iverson missed a wide open one from the top of the key and one from the corner and there a few others . Obviously you didn’t watch the game.
I don't know what you're trying to say here.
SteveGarvey1
Well-Known Member
No I didn't watch most of it. My daughter had a musical concert I attended. Thanks for setting me straight. I did hear though that Wisconsin's guards were a lot slower than the guards we've been losing to.
NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
Tons of freshman get big minutes in the league in today’s day and age. Cook an Bo made it in front of guys like Huerter, Ward, Carsen Edwards, Lamar Stevens, Cowan etc. which goes to show you they were pretty solid players.
KenPom actually ranked our three tournament teams as follows:
2014 (Marble Sr year): 22
2015 (White): 23
2016 (Uthoff): 23
That lead us to:
2014: 11 seed
2015: 7 seed
2016: 7 seed
So according to KenPom Fran did actually underachieve with three consecutive top 25 level teams, which isn’t really surprising given that most feel he isn’t a great in game coach.
I think Fran deserves credit for getting the kind of talent level here to create a top 25 type team. The problem is at a school like Iowa you’re going to have to be able to do more with less some years as a coach if you want to have consistency. He hasn’t proven the ability to do that yet.
They were solid players. But they more than likely were top 10-15 freshmen. Top 5 was pushing it. Their production due to minutes gave them the small boost needed to get on that list. Having 2 of your top 4 players being "pretty good" freshmen isn't really a "should have been better" situation.
Look at the roster on those teams. Does it scream top 25? Fran's coaching got a team where McCabe and Oglesby were major contributors to "look" like a top 25 team. The reason they didn't end up a top 25 team was they couldn't win close games.
Last year we stole a game from Wisconsin that we had no business winning with 2 minutes left. We hadn't won a game like that the previous 3 years. But we've lost a ton of them. I'm my opinion, Gard didn't choke that game away. His players did. Just like our players choked away all those games in previous years. They either got snake bit early in their careers and it got in their heads, or the just never had the clutch gene. Either way, they lost a TON of close games in that 3 year stretch. And I think a coach can only help your odds in a close game a little bit at best.
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